I am looking for suggestions for my 15 year old bipolar/adhd/dyslexic son. He will need to take a foreign language next year and I fear he will encouter great difficulty. When tested in December, his processing speed and coding were a 2 and 3 respectively so memory and organization are obviously huge issues. He also is an attrocious speller though his reading ability is much improved after going through the dyslexia program. Any thoughts?
Re: accomodations for foreign language
My son has working memory and processing problems, as well as visual problems. He is more of an auditory learner. What we did to tackle the foreign language was to have him take it in middle school for one year and write it off. ( I know you are not in this situation.)
Well, as expected, he did miserably. So, nearing the end of his 8th grade year, I contacted the high school and spoke with the department chair for spanish. I asked for a list of spanish tutors and use of the spanish book for the summer. You should also ask if there is a CD that can be used along with the book. Sometimes you can purchase them cheap off of the internet sites such as half.com or biblio.com.
We found an excellent spanish tutor and my son has had a 98% average for the first and second quarters. He attended tutoring 2 times a week during the summer and once a week through the school year.
The most important thing the tutor did was a learning style assessment. She relies heavily on his auditory and kinestetic (sp?) learning. She does use some visual, but she does not emphasize. Luckily, Spanish is spelled exactly how it sounds. He still struggles some with the spelling, but it is much better. He requires daily quizzing on vocab words using the gestures that the tutor has taught him.
Talk to the counselor and make sure your child gets a Spanish teacher that will incorporate multiple learning styles. It it a tremendous help. Also, if your high school does block scheduling and there is one period that takes place every day, having the foreign language during that period is helpful because daily exposure to a foreign language is a must for someone who struggles with language.
Good luck. I was just in your shoes.
accomodations for foreign language
Spanish is better for Dyslexics, as it only has about half as many phonemes to learn.
Though if he is a Visual learner, he might possibly be able to learn Sign Language instead?
Geoff,
Re: accomodations for foreign language
However, if you do sign language, you should make sure that it will be accepted at the college or university you intend to apply to.
Sorry for the multiple posts, I kept getting error messages and didnt realize my prior posts were entered. I can’t figure out how to deleate the other posts